Girl avoids jail for voting useless mom’s poll in Arizona

PHOENIX (AP) — A judge in Phoenix on Friday sentenced a girl o two years of felony probation, fines and group service for voting her useless mom’s poll in Arizona within the 2020 common election.

However the judge rejected a prosecutor’s request that she serve not less than 30 days in jail because she lied to investigators and demanded that they hold these committing voter fraud accountable.

The case towards Tracey Kay McKee, 64, is one in all just a handful of voter fraud cases from Arizona’s 2020 election that have led to fees, regardless of widespread belief amongst many supporters of former President Donald Trump that there was widespread voter fraud that led to his loss in Arizona and other battleground states.

McKee, who was from Phoenix suburb of Scottsdale but now lives in California, sobbed as she apologized to Maricopa County Superior Courtroom Decide Margaret LaBianca earlier than the choose handed down her sentence. McKee stated that she was grieving over the loss of her mom and had no intent to impression the outcome of the election.

“Your Honor, I wish to apologize,” McKee instructed LaBianca. “I don’t wish to make the excuse for my conduct. What I did was improper and I’m ready to just accept the results handed down by the court docket.”

Each McKee and her mother, Mary Arendt, had been registered Republicans, though she was not asked if she voted for Trump. Arendt died on Oct. 5, 2020, two days earlier than early ballots had been mailed to voters.

Assistant Attorney General Todd Lawson played a tape of McKee being interviewed by an investigator along with his workplace where she said there was rampant voter fraud and denied that she had signed and returned her mom’s ballot.

“The one strategy to prevent voter fraud is to physically go in and punch a ballot,” McKee informed the investigator. “I imply, voter fraud is going to be prevalent as long as there’s mail-in voting, for positive. I mean, there’s no means to make sure a fair election.

“And I don’t believe that this was a good election,” she continued. “I do imagine there was numerous voter fraud.”

Tom Henze, McKee’s legal professional, pointed to dozens of instances of voter fraud prosecuted in Arizona over the past decade, many for related violations of voting someone else’s ballot, and said no one acquired jail time in these cases. He stated agreeing with Lawson that McKee should do 30 days jail time would increase constitutional problems with equity.

“Simply stated, over a long time frame, in voluminous circumstances, 67 cases, no one on this state for comparable circumstances, in related context ... no person acquired jail time,” Henze mentioned. “The court docket didn’t impose jail time in any respect.”

But Lawson stated jail time was necessary because the kind of case has changed. While in years past, most instances concerned individuals voting in two states as a result of they both lived in or had property in each states, within the 2020 election people had bought into Trump’s claims of widespread voter fraud.

“What we’re hearing is voter fraud is out there,” Lawson told the judge. “And primarily what we’re seeing right here is somebody who says ‘Well, I’m going to commit voter fraud because it’s a big downside and I’m simply going to slip in below the radar. And I’m going to do it as a result of everyone else is doing it and I can get away with it.’

“I don’t subscribe to that at all,” he mentioned. “And I feel the angle you hear in the interview is the perspective that differentiates this case from the opposite circumstances.”

LaBianca said that while she agreed with Lawson, ordering jail time would give McKee what she told the investigator what she wished: going after individuals who committed voter fraud.

“And if there have been evidence that this crime was on the rise, and that heightened deterrence could also be referred to as for, the court docket might order jail time,” LaBianca said. “But the document here does not show that this crime is on the rise.

“And abhorrent as it might be for somebody just like the defendant to attack the legitimacy of our free elections with none proof, except your own fraud, such statements are not unlawful as far as I do know,” the decide continued.